Boston College Heroes

Doug Flutie

– Winner of the 1984 Heisman Trophy Award as the outstanding college football player in America.

– A surefire combination of derring-do, charisma and dazzling football skills made him the most proficient offensive player in the history of college football (11,318 career yards); he was the first major college football passer to surpass 10,000 career yards (10,579).

– A unanimous First-Team All-America selection in 1984, he also won the Maxwell Award (outstanding player) and the Davey O’Brien Award (top quarterback) that year.

– Earned a starting role as a true freshman and never missed a game in his four-year career. He led BC teams to the 1982 Tangerine Bowl, the 1983 Liberty Bowl and the 1985 Cotton Bowl championship. An excellent student as well as athlete, he was a candidate for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship in his senior year.

– After graduation, he played 22 years of professional football and was elected to the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility (2007).

Mike Ruth

Mike Ruth is the only Boston College player ever to win the Outland Trophy, presented to the nation’s best interior offensive or defensive lineman. Though his team had a losing record, Ruth was honored in 1985, the only time a player from a non-winning team has been honored. At 6-1 and 265 pounds, he not only was the team’s strongest player — he had a record 560-pound bench press as a junior — but he also was the quickest lineman.

In 1984, as the key to the Eagles defensive strength, Ruth had 102 tackles, 76 of them solo. He had 6.5 sacks, but also was credited with 20 quarterback pressures and seven other minus-yard plays. In the 1984 game against Holy Cross, he pressured the Crusader quarterback into throwing five interceptions.

He was team captain in 1985, his Outland Trophy year, but his leadership, even in a losing season, remained true to his personality. He told everyone before that season that he was not a holler guy, that his leadership would be by example. He never wavered and played as intensely as he had the previous seasons.

Ruth was Inducted into the Boston College Varsity Club Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993.